Young women in wartime jobs.

Camera: D. Nichols and F.B. Hyde. Narrator: Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Sponsor: U.S. National Youth Administration
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: need keyword

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Marysz - - January 7, 2012
Subject: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
Eleanor Roosevelt narrates this film about the National Youth Administration which prepared both young men and women for homefront jobs during WWII. This film concentrates on the work of young women, who we see competently doing jobs normally reserved for men, electronics, welding, sheet metal and tool and dye work. Of course, once the war was over, these young women were shooed off their jobs to make way for the returning veterans. There was a fear that a large number of unemployed veterans would create social unrest and be easy prey for left-wing (i.e., communist) agitators. So women were put into the state of enforced domesticity, where their new job was to be purchasers of (mostly) useless consumer products, often produced at the same factories where they had once worked. Sad to say, most women compliantly went along with this social demotion and became housewives financially dependent on their husbands. Fortunately, their daughters wised up and re-invented the women's movement in the sixties.

Reviewer: Spuzz - - March 21, 2005
Subject: Thank heaven for women!
An okay film about how women are being used to do jobs that men usually do in the production line. Somewhat awkwardly narrated by Eleanor Roosevelt, the film shows us many different wartime jobs being done by women, but the budget (and maybe inexperience) shows in this film.

Reviewer: cashel - - November 4, 2003
Subject: actuality film
this film is valuable for the gracious introduction by mrs rooseveldt,wife of the u.s. president....the remaindeer comprises scenes of real women doing real jobs in war time and is antidote to the common hollywood view